In other words: A discussion of The Bush Administration
To follow up Michael's post below.
I too want to reiterate that the anger TCS has with Bush, The Pentagon, Rummy, and many military brass, has nothing to do with our soldiers. We wish only the best for our troops and wish them a safe return (and a quick return).
They have volunteered to secure our nation and keep our nation free, the least Bush could have done was used their sacrifice only when necessary, and not for... I don't even know what for - honestly. Money? Oil? Business for his pals? Revenge for Dad? Thought it'd be cool? (probably the last).
Even anger at the rare (given the amount of soldiers stationed there) case of a soldier acting with a wanton brutality is tempered with the sadness knowing that that person was thrown into a situation of daily life and death struggles. That kind of pressure must be horribly caustic to one's soul.
Best Wishes, and hopes for safety for the holiday season and for the length of their stay.
And now back to anger at Bush and Rummy: War on the CheapGreg Rund was a freshman at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., in 1999 when two students shot and killed a teacher, a dozen of their fellow students and themselves. Mr. Rund survived that horror, but he wasn't able to survive the war in Iraq. The 21-year-old Marine lance corporal was killed on Dec. 11 in Falluja.
The people who were so anxious to launch the war in Iraq are a lot less enthusiastic about properly supporting the troops who are actually fighting, suffering and dying in it. Corporal Rund was on his second tour of duty in Iraq. Because of severe military personnel shortages, large numbers of troops are serving multiple tours in the war zone, and many are having their military enlistments involuntarily extended.
...
The Bush administration, which has asked so much of the armed forces, has established a pattern of dealing in bad faith with its men and women in uniform. The callousness of its treatment of the troops was, of course, never more clear than in Donald Rumsfeld's high-handed response to a soldier's question about the shortages of battle armor in Iraq.
As the war in Iraq goes more and more poorly, the misery index of the men and women serving there gets higher and higher. More than 1,300 have been killed. Many thousands are coming home with agonizing wounds. Scott Shane of The Times reported last week that according to veterans' advocates and military doctors, the already hard-pressed system of health care for veterans "is facing a potential deluge of tens of thousands of soldiers returning from Iraq with serious mental health problems brought on by the stress and carnage of war."
...
From the earliest planning stages until now, the war in Iraq has been a tragic exercise in official incompetence. The original rationale for the war was wrong. The intelligence was wrong. The estimates of required troop strength were wrong. The war hawks' guesses about the response of the Iraqi people were wrong. The cost estimates were wrong, and on and on.
- rob 2:36 PM - [PermaLink] -
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